Silent Remembrances
by Enchanted1
Summary: Tara gets bitten by a vampire, and Willow starts remembering...Oz. Rediscovering her love for him, how far wil she go to find him? Before the 5th season, after NMR.
1. Loveless

Title: Silent Remembrances  
Author: Enchanted  
Rating: PG-13  
Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy or any of its characters...if I did, I'd lock Oz and Willow up in my closet and never let them out....  
A/N: Ok. Now, I don't hate Tara or anything. I just thought, What if Oz or Willow gets turned by a vampire? Then, taking it a step further, I thought, what if Tara gets turned and Willow starts to feel again for Oz? It's gets more complicated than this...don't worry.  
  
Silent Remembrances  
  
Maybe it was fate. Maybe I was meant to have all my loves disappear or die. If so, I'm fated to live a pretty loveless life.   
  
Tara was turned and slain. Turned by some moronic vampire that decided to randomly chow down on my girlfriend. I remember seeing her appear at my door, beautiful as ever, her blonde hair spread on her shoulders, her eyes shining with malice. But, God, then she made that face that vampires make, you know the one with the fangs protruding and the face all wrinkled up? The truth hit me as hard as a sledgehammer banging down on my skull, and my world came crashing down on me. In that one instant, before I slammed the door on her, my soul wept. As the door shut in her face, I collapsed on the floor, sobbing out my anguish. Why Tara? Why couldn't it have been anyone else?  
  
I realized what had to happen before anything else could. Picking up the phone, my trembling fingers pressed speed dial, and as if she knew this had happened, she picked up on the first ring.  
  
"Hello?" her perpetually cheery voice chirped on the other end.  
  
"B-Buffy..." I choked on my sobs.  
  
"Willow?" she recognized my voice instantly, "Willow, what's wrong? Tell me."  
  
"It's..." I almost couldn't say her name. "It's Tara. She's---turned."  
  
"Turned? Did you guys screw up doing a spell or something? What did she turn into? Do you need me over to help research and turn her back?" she sounded relieved, as if it had been a false scare.  
  
"No! Buffy, she's turned!"   
  
It took her a few seconds to understand. Then, the jagged breath on the other end told me that she comprehended the meaning of my words. I suspect tears fell, but not as fast or as hard as mine did. "Oh my God. Willow, do you need me to...you know?"  
  
I did know. "No. I can do it. Just give me the pointiest stake you can find so I can get it done quicker." I knew that pointiness doesn't matter when it comes to killing vampires, you stab them through the heart with something sharp made of wood, then---poof---they're dust. "I just want her to rest in peace." Looking back on it now, I realize how objective I sounded, not like I was grieving, which I already was. After all, she was technically dead.  
  
When I met Buffy by the graveyard, and she handed me a stake, which was extra pointy, I don't think that even then I knew what I was doing. She gave me the most reassuring hug she could muster at the time. "You sure you wanna do this?"  
  
I nodded. If Tara had to be slain, it would be me.  
  
"Ok. I'm right behind you. If there's any trouble, just shout."  
  
Walking down an empty street at 1:00 in the morning put a lot of things in perspective for me. I was on the brink of a thought that was so revolutionary to me, so naturally, at that moment, I was pushed roughly from behind.   
  
"Willow," the cold voice greeted me.  
  
"Tara." Her breath barely grazed my skin. I felt her lips touch the side of my neck. I knew what was going to happen next.   
  
I turned to face her, which surprised her. I don't blame her, usually the victims of vampires beg or fight.   
  
Maybe vampires have a tiny bit of human in them. If that's so, then I know what I did was the right thing.  
  
I raised my left hand to run it through her blonde hair one last time. "Tara," I let a tear slip out. "I love you."  
  
It took her off guard when I kissed her long enough for me to work my right hand to draw out the stake, which I had concealed underneath my bulky coat.  
  
Then, I pushed her away and drove the stake through her unbeating heart. I remember the   
expression of surprise and of pain. It remains etched in my memory, the disbelief and distress on her face. Then, she was gone.  
  
I remember dropping the stake and falling, my tears falling, and scrambling around on all fours, trying to gather up the dust. I think I was trying to accumulate as much of her together as I could before Buffy came and enfolded me in her arms.   
  
"Willow, I'm so sorry," she kept whispering, and I remember her tears mingling with mine.  
  
After that, there's nothing. Just a big ol' blank in my memory. Which is kind of odd, because I'm not that forgetful.  
  
Buffy says that I was hysterical. I pushed her away and kept trying to sweep up what remained of Tara, which was being blown away in the breeze. Buffy had to slap me several times to calm me down. After I collapsed to the ground, in a state of shock, she picked me up effortlessly in her arms, and carried me back to my room.  
  
I had to stay in bed for two days, moaning and ranting and raving all the while about 'fate' and 'destiny'.  
  
When I finally woke up, Buffy, Xander, Anya, and Dawn were congregated around the sides of my bed. The first thought that flashed across my mind was, 'There's one missing. Where's Tara?' It was then that I understood what I had done. And that, in my opinion, was scarier than being hysterical.  
  
I was so unbelievably angry. I hated myself, hated Spike for being a vampire, hated Buffy for having a vampire lover in the past, hated Xander for having Anya and Anya for having Xander, and I hated Dawn...just because. I didn't speak to anyone for a week, suffering in my silence. It seemed like a month before I smiled, and even longer before I laughed.  
But, slowly, I acknowledged the fact of Tara's death. I started laughing more, which was a relief for everyone, because I haven't gone a week without laughing since the day I was born.   
  
  
One day, out of the blue, I went to get my hair cut. I had allowed it to grow too long during the past few weeks, and it was getting a little bit unruly. Getting haircuts are kind of neat, because you could start all over with your hair, and if you didn't like it, you could always grow it out, you know? As the scissors snipped away the red locks to my chin, I looked down at the strands that were gathering around my chair. And I thought, 'Goodbye, Tara.' That was weird, cause I don't usually say my farewells to past lovers while getting my hair cut.  
  
I think that's when I accepted it. I accepted the fact that Tara was dead, and that she would never come back. I comforted myself with the thought that she was happy, wherever she was. I knew it was in some sort of heaven, because she deserved to be there and to be happy.  
  
That was the week I went to see her grave. The grave was a waste of time, really, because it was only a tombstone that had her name and date of birth and death. Since there was no body, there was no grave to dig. Buffy sprinkled the tombstone with the remaining dust that she could salvage, a handful that she had hurriedly stuffed in her pocket before she carried me back to my room. The only thing that mattered was one part of the inscription.  
'She loved until the very end..'  
  
~*~  
  
"Hey, how's Willow doing?" Xander asked, taking a sip of the hot chocolate Anya handed him, and then spitting it all over the table.  
  
"Good job, Xander!" Anya almost shouted as she swooped up some napkins and hurriedly laid them down to soak up the mess.  
  
"The chocolate was hot! Are you trying to kill me?! I won't be able to taste anything for the next few days."  
  
Choosing to ignore this, Buffy answered his former question. "She's doing ok for a girl who had to slay her own girlfriend."  
  
"You know, that would really suck."  
  
This statement got glares.  
  
"Hey!" Xander was quick to defend himself. "I'm just saying that if one of my friends got their blood sucked by a vampire and I had to kill them, I'd be a little stricken too." As if to prove this, he put one arm around Anya, who looked a little smug. "You know," he added as an afterthought, "if it were up to me, I just don't know what I would do."  
  
"Yeah, but Willow was strong. It was almost like she wasn't feeling anything throughout the whole ordeal. If it were..." Buffy stopped herself from saying the name.  
  
"If it were Oz," Xander finished.  
  
"That's different," Anya cut in. "The love was different between the two of them. Willow and Oz loved with something more powerful. He was almost obsessed with her."  
  
The three of them mulled over this until Xander broke the silence that descended upon them suddenly. "So, you think Will's gonna be up for a little get-together tommorow night? Just me and the rest of the Scoobies. And you of course," Xander hastily added that part on.  
  
"I'll ask, but don't expect anything," Buffy told him. "Get-togethers are fun."  
  
"Tons," Anya chirped.  
  
"Willow's excluded herself from any fun, remember?"  
  
"In that case, tell her it'll be a bore."  
  
~*~  
  
It's been more than a month now. I lay curled up in my bed, letting the red of my hair blend with the blue pillowcases. It hurts. Thinking of him hurts when it shouldn't.  
I got over him. At least, I think I did. Or maybe meeting Tara hid that. Maybe when I met her, she covered the wound to help me temporarily forget all that pain. Now that she's gone, is it all back? I don't think I could live with that thought. That Tara was conveniently just there to replace Oz.   
  
No. She couldn't be. I did love her. I did!   
  
It must have been because whenever she was around, I could forget about Oz, push him into the darkest corners of my mind, like dirt hastily swept underneath a rug. But sooner or later, the dirt is going to accumulate underneath that rug until it's spilling out of the corners.   
  
I realize that now. Oz was always there, slouching around in the back of my mind, waiting for Tara to go before he could make a reappearance in my thoughts and in my heart. He was never really gone, and I was never really truly over him.  
  
That belittles Tara, I know, but I loved her too. Just not as much as I loved him.  
  
I wonder what he's doing now? And I wonder where he is, and if he's found someone else.   
  
Oz. Ow. Oz. Ow.  
  
This is going to keep going, isn't it? Because I can't really stop my mind from drifting to him. I wonder if he's still alive. And I know he is, because I would have known somehow. I would have eventually accepted it, like I had accepted Tara's death. Plus, I would be more at peace, instead of curled up in my bed at 3:00 in the afternoon.   
  
Where is he? What's he doing? Is he in love? The last question particularly bothers me and it bothers me that it bothers me.  
  
There's a knock on my bedroom door and I struggle to sit up. A glance in the mirror confirms what I fear---red eyes and bad bed hair. Oh well. It's probably Buffy, and she's been through much more than me looking like hell. "Come in," I call.  
  
"Hey, Willow. How are you?" Buffy greets me, her green eyes looking me over. I know she doesn't approve of what she sees, but she hides it well. I'm starting to get worried about her hiding stuff, actually. I think there's something going on between her and Spike, but she hasn't told me. I can sense it, though. It's like trying to hide a really tall man in a crowd of midgets, or something like that.  
  
"I'm ok." I figure if she can hide stuff, I can too, right?  
  
"Good. Um, listen, Xander's having a little get-together tomorrow night. He's invited you."  
  
"Oh. I'm vaguely pleased that he remembered me."  
  
"Willow," she says reprovingly.  
  
"I know, I know. I'll back off, Miss Buffy."  
  
"Can you go?" she sounds eager. I might as well go to please her. But...I don't know. I'd rather be at home, sleeping, watching TV and thinking of Oz. Quickly, in my mind, I delete that last part. Still...  
  
"It'll be fun," Buffy says, cajoling.   
  
Wrong word. If there's anything I don't deserve, it's fun. I deserve to stay at home and be miserable for the rest of my life. "Sorry, I've got...stuff to do."  
  
"What do you have to do on a Saturday, Willow?" her voice becomes impatient. Great. Now I've got my best friend annoyed at me.  
  
"Stuff! I have plenty of stuff!" I reply indignantly.  
  
"Will, I just want you to get out of this room for once," Buffy defends herself, which I know is a simple reaction.  
  
"Oh yeah? Well, I get out of this room enough, thank you!" I shouted, something I never intended to do.  
  
"I'm sorry! God!" she stood up from the bed and flounced out of the room, slamming the door behind her.   
  
I stare at the door. I'm sorry too, Buff. I don't know what's wrong with me. Maybe I need the pain. I don't know. And that's odd of me.  
  
Oz. Ow. Oz. Ow. Oz...  
  
Am I crazy? I think I'm actually enjoying the pain. It makes me feel a little light headed and more than a little giddy.  
  
...I like you giddy...always have...  
  
Oz's voice rang in my ears and I nearly jumped up in shock. It was almost like he was right next to me.   
  
God, I miss him.  
  
~*~ 


	2. Canapes and Animal Crackers

Title: Silent Remembrances  
Author: Enchanted  
Rating: PG-13  
Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy or any of its characters.  
A/N: It gets a little weird in this chapter, but bear with me. It gets much more better in the next chapter...  
  
Silent Remembrances Pt. 2  
  
~*~  
"Ooh, cute!" Willow squealed over a red sparkly tank top that Buffy pulled out of the sale rack.  
  
Buffy posed in front of a conveniently placed mirror with the tank top placed over her body. "I dunno. You don't think it's a little... tight?"  
  
"Well, yes," Willow replied, "but that's the whole point, right? Go try it on. With...umm...these," Willow tugged out dark denim pants that she knew would fit her.  
  
"Are you sure?" Buffy disappeared into the dressing room.  
  
"You don't trust my fashion judgment?" Willow pouted, to which Buffy rolled her eyes.  
  
"I don't ever see you wearing clothes like these, which makes me feel..." she grunted a little as she pulled the top over her head, "...a little..." grunt, "...doubtful."   
  
At this point, Buffy had pulled on the jeans, which was a little restraining on her. She pushed open the door tentatively, stepping out of the dim light of the dressing room.   
  
Willow felt a touch of jealousy and it must have shown on her face.  
  
"What? It doesn't look good? I knew it was too..."  
  
"No! Buffy, it looks wonderful. I'm just a little bit...envious. Jealous of how you look good in...well, everything."  
  
"I think I'll take that as a compliment," Buffy beamed, twirling in front of the mirror. "Think I should get it?"  
  
"Of course. Unless there's an apocalypse coming soon and you'll never get the chance to wear it."  
  
Buffy glanced at her. "You know that if there's an apocalypse, we'll stop it, right?"  
  
"Right. So buy it."  
  
Buffy gazed at Willow's reflection in the mirror. That same haunted look was still on her face, the look of pain and agony that always plagued her normally happy face nowadays.   
She tried to hide it, but at the oddest moments, flashes of her true emotions would break through and ripple across her face. Sometimes, they would leave her so grief-stricken that tears actually seemed to swim in her eyes. And then, she would shake her head, let her red hair fall in front of her face to shield her eyes. When she reemerged from that curtain, the mask was securely in place again.  
  
She thought that she was hiding it so well. But there were times that even Xander noticed it, and he was usually the dull-witted of the group.  
  
Now was one of those times. Buffy quickly reached an arm behind her and patted Willow's shoulder comfortingly. "I'm glad you went shopping with me today. I missed doing the girl thing with you."  
  
Willow smiled through her tears. "Yeah. I missed doing it too." Striving to change the subject, she asked, "How was the get-together last night?"  
  
"Boring," Buffy said a little too quickly. "No fun at all. It was good you missed it."  
  
"You're lying for my benefit, right?"  
  
"Yes. And as you may already know, I really suck at lying," Buffy admitted. "Do you remember when you used to lie to make me feel not so bad? When I was missing out on everything?"  
  
Willow smiled. "Yeah. Never thought you'd be doing it for me."  
  
"Don't worry. It wasn't that fun. Just a bonding night."  
  
"Yay. Another bonding opportunity that I have missed out on."  
  
"C'mon, Willow. Don't be so disappointed. I just want you to get over Tara in your own sweet time...no rush."  
  
"I am over Tara," Willow stated simply.  
  
Knowing not to say otherwise, Buffy shrugged it off as a form of denial. "Anyways, Xander served some of those yummy little canapés...you know the ones..."  
  
...Canapé?...  
  
Willow stopped in her tracks, unnoticed by Buffy, who kept on rambling as she made her way to the register. This time, it was worse. It was almost like...if she reached out she could touch him, touch his hair, touch his face, touch his hand as he looked down at the cafeteria tray that held the canapés that he offered her. Breathless, she leaned against the sale rack to regain her balance. She remembered that the sale rack had wheels a moment too late as the metal rods rolled away from her, and she lost her balance, pinwheeling backwards and landing flat on her back, blinking through unwanted tears.  
  
"Oh my God," she could hear Buffy say as she rushed to her side, "Willow. Willow, are you ok?"  
  
"Take me home, Buffy. I wanna go home," Willow sobbed.  
  
"Will, what's wrong?"  
  
"I miss him. I don't know why, but I miss him so much and it hurts and..."  
  
Buffy dropped the outfit she was about to pay 30 dollars for and helped her best friend up to her feet. There was a him?! "Willow, what the hell is going on?"  
  
"Take me home," Willow repeated, tears still spilling from her emerald eyes.   
  
"Excuse me," a blonde lady approached the two that were making such a spectacle of themselves in the middle of the store, "but you two will have to go outside and quiet down until you can clean up this mess."  
  
"You know what?" Buffy gritted her teeth and faced the saleswoman, her eyes not shooting fire. "My best friend is crying her eyes out in public when she refuses to do it in front of her friends. I don't know what's going on, but suddenly a 'him' pops up in the big picture. For the past months, there wasn't a 'him'. Just a her. Can you imagine my confusion?"  
  
The sale lady nodded, perplexed.  
  
"Good. Now back off." Buffy helped Willow to her feet and let her lean on her shoulder as they hobbled out to her car.  
  
"When we get home," Buffy vowed to her still sobbing friend, "you're going to tell me everything."  
  
~*~  
  
I haven't told her a thing. I know it's cold and cruel, leaving her clueless like this, but I also know this is something that I have to face on my own. Buffy might not understand my reason for pain, so I won't tell her. Simple as that.  
  
My door bursts open, and is replaced by Buffy's figure, holding an oversized mug of coffee.  
  
"Thanks," I say as I accept the mug from her.  
  
"Willow, you need to tell me what's going on. You cannot keep it in you forever. The pain will erupt and leave you shaking."  
  
"Like a volcano," I pipe up, cutting her off in her monologue.  
  
"Well, not as bad as that in some degrees, but...ok, like a volcano. Are you going to tell me?"  
  
"No. You wouldn't understand." I nervously start picking at a navy-colored thread that sticking out of my bedspread.  
  
"I loved a vampire. I almost died so he would live. I think I would understand, Will," she exclaims desperately. "If you can't tell us, we won't be able to help you!"  
  
That's exactly it. You won't be able to help me. This is something I have to face myself.  
  
"Willow, " she starts, but I cut her off again.  
  
"Do you have any animal crackers?"   
  
She sighs disappointedly. Maybe she's reached the end of her rope. I hope she doesn't think I'm insane. "I'll look," she says dully, getting off my bed and closing the door gently behind her. Considering all that's been happening, she's being so good to me right now. I'll have to remember to thank her when this is all over.   
  
She returns with a big bag of animal crackers. "Found them in the kitchen cabinet. What do you need them for?"  
  
That's a question that I can't answer. Not because I don't want to, but because I don't know why. Kind of weird.  
  
When the silence spreads throughout the room, she sighs again. "If you need anything, just call me, ok?"  
  
"Ok," I answer.  
  
She leaves. Finally. Now I can be alone to pursue my jumbled-up thoughts and try to make as much sense of it all as I can.  
  
Oh boy. Here we go.  
  
Animal crackers...they're associated with Oz. They were one of the first topics of weird conversations that I have ever held with him. I smile a little as I pick up a lion and run my fingers across the ridges that resemble his mane. Animal crackers are done with so much detail. This lion looks like it's about to bite someone's head off.   
  
I grab a giraffe out of the chaotic mix of brown sugary sweetness and parade the two along my bedspread, feeling strangely happy. It was like when I was younger, I got lost in playing with Barbies, creating new situations and new outfits and stuff. Never mind that the outfits on them were a little weird, it's the thought that matters, right?  
  
"Hello, Mr. Lion," I say, my voice strangely discomfiting in the silence of my room.  
  
"Hello, Ms. Giraffe. How are the kids?"  
  
I can't believe it. I'm making two animal crackers talk to each other. Without a second thought, I stick the two in my mouth and start chewing, feeling all flushed from the embarrassment.  
  
I stick my hand back into the striped bag and pull out a monkey. Oh no. I know where this is going. My suddenly teary eyes slide over the jubilant figure and his happy smile. They stop at the pants he is happily---and most honorably---wearing.  
  
...I mock you with my monkey pants...  
  
"I mock you with my monkey pants," I say, and it's almost eerie how my voice sounds like his did.  
  
Oz.  
  
I let my head fall onto the bedspread, which shuts out the light. True darkness comes a few seconds later.  
  
~*~  
  
"Xander?" Buffy whispered urgently into the phone. "Yeah. Please, please come over, now. It's urgent." She nervously looked up from the receiver towards the halfway closed door that led to Willow's room. "I swear to you, this isn't trivial. Yes, I know it's not the best...for God's sake, will you just come over?!" She turned her back to the door and continued talking in low tones. "I'm at Willow's place. No, it's not a girl thing," this was said with a little bit of exasperation. "It's a friend thing. That's why I need you and not Anya. No, I know that Anya is Will's friend too, but this has to do with more of you and her and me, ok?" She slightly recoiled from the phone at his response. "Eww...get your mind out of the gutter. The last thing on my mind is sex with you. Just get over...how urgent is it?!" Buffy shot a glance at the door where Willow's voice emerged from the depths of silence.   
  
"She's talking to animal crackers. She called one of them Oz."  
  
There was an unusual quiet at the other end. And then he started talking again.  
  
"Oh, great. Thanks," Buffy sighed with relief. "I'll see you in a few, all right? Bye." She heard the sharp click on the other end and replaced the receiver. So 'him' was Oz. Why now? After all this time?  
  
Worriedly, she started pacing the floor and, without meaning to, eavesdropping on the little snippets that floated past Willow's door.  
  
"You left me...you never came back..."  
  
This was said with so much pain that Buffy almost walked into the room to confront Willow. At the last moment, she stopped herself. Xander would come, and they would both help her. Two friends were better than one. It would be proved true in this certain situation.  
  
"You said you loved me...but you don't, do you, Oz? Huh?! Do you?!" Willow shouted, and then, little sobs punctuated what she said next.  
  
"Why does it hurt so much? You ripped me in...in half...and only you can put me back...together...why did you leave? Why didn't..." she trailed off, unable to finish.  
  
Buffy softly tiptoed up to the door and glanced in. In Willow's hand was an animal cracker, one that looked like a monkey. It was a very creepy picture, but more than that, it broke Buffy's heart. Unable to restrain her tears, she let them flow free down her cheeks, suffering for her best friend.  
  
"Oh Willow," she whispered, "why can't you just let him go?"  
  
"I love you," Willow stated to the monkey.   
  
Xander popped up behind Buffy, his brown eyes filled with concern. He had heard the whole outburst the moment he had let himself into the house. "That's why, Buffy," he quietly remarked, pain evident in his voice. "She loves him."  
~*~ 


	3. Freeze

Title: Silent Remembrances  
Author: Enchanted  
Rating: PG-13  
Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy or any of its characters.  
A/N: I'm so sorry it took me this long to update...I was grounded off the internet and then I had school to deal with and stuff! Thank you guys for being so damn patient!! I love you!  
  
Silent Remembrances Pt. 3  
  
~*~  
"Willow," I heard a slightly muted voice repeat my name over and over. The slightest hint of light was streaking my unnatural darkness.  
  
"Willow," I hear again. Wow. Whoever's trying to wake me up from my nap must be very persistent. I can sleep through anything...even a pack of demons...well, maybe not a pack of demons, but something like that.  
  
"WILLOW!" I feel someone shaking my shoulder roughly and I open my eyes reluctantly. Instantly, I wish I hadn't. The light almost blinds me, and in the fading sun, I can make out two figures, outline by shadows, like a smudged sketch. Blinking once or twice, I finally recognized Buffy and Xander. My two closest friends in the world.  
  
Funny. Right now, I really didn't feel like talking to them.  
  
"Hey," I groggily mumble. Glancing over to my right hand, I see what looks like a crumbled animal cracker, gripped in between my fingers like a death vise. "Whoa. Was I eating animal crackers in my sleep?"  
  
"Uh, Willow, you weren't asleep," Xander tells me matter-of-factly. Of course, that isn't true. I know that I was fast asleep because I was dreaming. Of him. Oz.  
  
"Yeah. And you weren't just eating those," Buffy points to the open bag of tawny animal crackers, which spilled over my bedspread in a neat little mound. Shouldn't be that hard to clean up later. "You were talking to them."  
  
My mind snaps from cleaning up the animal crackers straight to what Buffy just stated.  
  
"I...I was talking to them?"  
  
Xander nods. "You called one of them Oz."  
  
Uh-oh. That's not fair! They weren't supposed to ever learn about him! Stammering a little, I try to frame a denial, "Oz...now why would I go and talk about a...silly thing like that? I mean, I'm way over him..."  
  
"Stop it," Buffy orders in that terse voice that means business.  
  
"Ok," I comply immediately, casting my eyes down upon the floor.  
  
"Why didn't you tell us, Willow? We could have helped you---" an elbow in Xander's ribs stops him from whatever he's going to say. As if I couldn't see that!  
  
"But I can't," I say in response. "I love him."  
  
Silence greets this declaration.  
  
Without saying anything else, I raise the monkey up to my lips. For a second, I could really believe the monkey was Oz, and that I could taste his lips, the taste of salt, spice and incense, which probably rubbed off from me. For a second, I could sense him there, happily resting his lips against mine. For a second, the world froze and let me kiss him after so many months...the world froze and just let Oz and Willow be.   
  
...Freeze frame...willowkissage...  
  
But the sugary sweet flavor ruins it all so I open my lips, chew up the monkey, and swallow.   
  
I glance up at my two closest friends in the entire world and grin. "This is something I have to face on my own. You get that, don't you? I mean, Buffy, I didn't exactly barge in when you were getting over Angel, did you? And, Xander, when you and Cordy broke up, you refused to talk to anyone about it. This is exactly like it. Only, I won't move on, because...because it's fate. It's destiny." I don't look up throughout it all, hoping they'll understand what I am saying. "The moon brought him to me," I whisper, not knowing why I had said it. I finally glanced up, and instead of seeing belligerence, like I thought I would see, there were flashes of consideration that alternated with sympathy. As if they understood. Did they?  
  
"Ironic, isn't it?" Buffy muttered after a while.  
  
"What is?" I question, a little bit confused. That came out of nowhere.  
  
"That the moon took him away," Xander answered for her.  
  
I smile wryly. What would Oz say?  
  
... definitely falls underneath the heading of ironic ...  
  
"...in my book..." I finish.  
  
The looks on Buffy's and Xander's faces prove that they think I'm losing my last grip on sanity. Scary thing? I think I am too.  
  
~*~  
  
Buffy hastily closed the door behind her. "O...k..." she whispered as she exhaled. "I think..."  
  
Xander held his hand up. "Stop. We said we'd let Willow work it out on her own. Therefore, we should let her work it out on her own," so saying, he opened the front door and then graciously extended his hand, a signal that meant, 'Ladies First.'  
  
Buffy flashed him a quick smile. "But...don't you remember when we let Willow work it out on her own? She cast that will be done spell, and I was frenching Spike for four hours! Four hours, Xander!" Her facial emotions, however, didn't exactly match the disgust in her voice.  
  
Xander tried in vain to stop his face from contorting in abhorrence. "Yeah, that was gross," he admitted, "but I think Willow's smarter now. She wouldn't dare do that again. Are you going to leave her here?"  
  
"Yeah, but not for long," Buffy reassured the concerned Xander. "Just to talk to Giles and Anya."   
  
"She might do something drastic..."  
  
"Like talk to animal crackers?" she retorted sharply before storming off down the street.   
  
They both didn't notice the flutter of the curtains in the front window, a signal that someone in the house had been spying on them.  
  
Willow stepped away from the lacy curtains. She was beginning to think that they would never leave.   
  
Brushing back her hair from her gem-like eyes, she swiftly came to a decision. She was going crazy. Going slowly insane because his voice would pop up in her head, seemingly out of nowhere, and then disappear to whatever unknown land that voices like that reside. Willow was convinced that there was a place somewhere, maybe on a different plane, where bodiless voices resided, and they lived to plague suffering people like her.  
  
Well, she wouldn't have it. She would put a stop to it now.   
  
Striding confidently to the chest at the end of her bed, she knew without opening and rifling through it that most of the components she needed for the spell would be in it. On top of the warped wood was a large, old book, the title chipped away from age.   
  
It was stupid. Just a few minutes ago, she had been talking about destiny, and how she would brave everything to find him again. Now, she would give it all back just to have him disappear from her life, without a sound. Just have the thought of him evaporate into the sky.  
  
"Love Spell," she snapped out suddenly, and the book's pages flapped in an unknown wind, in the fingers of an invisible hand, until it stopped abruptly at a page marked Love Magick.  
  
She had tried to do this spell once, on Xander. The de-lusting spell. She had wanted to get rid of the feelings that were wrong, because she didn't want to hurt Oz. Oz had turned out to hurt her in the end.  
  
'So what does it matter?' she asked herself. 'The point of this spell is to make your heart forget.'  
  
To forget the memories and the kisses, to erase them from her heart. She would still remember them, but they wouldn't make her all mushy and sad like they were doing now. It was her heart that needed to be brainwashed.  
  
Mixing the ingredients went by fast as Willow's practiced fingers sped into the art of magick, so fast that the mixing only seemed to take a second.  
  
Finally, she held the vial in the grip of her pointer finger and her thumb. The moment of truth...was she strong enough to do it?  
  
She was.  
  
Willow upended the vial of dank black liquid into her mouth and let its sliminess roll down her throat, grimacing. It felt like swallowing a frog. Had it been a love spell, and not a de-lusting one, it would have turned out scarlet red, and had gone down easy. But now...  
She nearly choked, but quickly collected her thoughts and croaked out the words she had made up for the spell.  
  
"Aphrodite, I call on you now in mercy, in hopelessness. I implore you, pull back the touch of love you have descended on my part, and erase the memories that he has made in my heart...."  
  
"Erase every smile..."  
  
...You have the sweetest smile I have ever seen...  
  
"Erase every smile!" Willow shouted over the voice in her head, and there was a bright red flash in the room. "Erase every kiss," the same bright red flash.  
  
"Erase every memory and delete every piece of me that he has made his. Aphrodite, I call on you in mercy to take my heart and make it loveless. So mote it be."  
  
The words recited, Willow dropped her hands and lowered her head, briefly wondering if it had worked. In the midst of waiting, there was another bright flash in the room, and Willow felt herself swaying. Blackness plunged upon her, like that of the dark night, and she couldn't move, couldn't speak. There was nothing but the perfect ebony, without the slightest touch of light to mar it.  
  
She felt the potion run ice-cold through her veins, and throughout her body. With each second, the cold became almost painful, like holding a bottle of cold soda against your cheek.  
  
With a great shudder, the ice reached her heart. Willow let out a bloodcurdling scream.  
She could feel the coldness pass through the four chambers of her heart with aching awareness, and it was like it was being ripped from her body and shredded into little pieces.  
  
Finally, her shivering body relaxed against the carpeted floor, still twitching once or twice from the frost that had paraded through her system.  
  
Did it work? Willow asked in the silence of the blackness.  
  
An hour passed as she lay there, frozen and unable to move, struggling to lift a finger, to move her toe, to flick an eyelid, anything.   
  
But the potion had to wear off. And it finally did as Buffy, Xander, and Anya came in through her front door.  
  
'Ah, hell,' Willow thought vehemently, since she couldn't move her lips or her tongue to say the words.  
  
"Willow!" Buffy called. "We brought you some ice..." there was a deadly silence as she pushed the door open and took the room in at a glance.  
  
A chaotic mess of ingredients was strewn along the floor that bordered the chest, and there was broken glass everywhere. Willow was on the floor, in her red flannel pajamas, her eyes closed and her body slightly twitching.  
  
"Oh my God," Anya said as she looked over Buffy 's shoulder and pushed her out of the way.  
  
"What is it?" Xander asked, "What did she do?"  
  
"It looks like...like a love spell, only the complete opposite."  
  
"Did it work?" Buffy questioned her.  
  
"It usually does. There's one exception, though..."  
  
Before Anya could finish, Willow's eyes flew open. She drew in a staggering breath, and then another.   
  
And then, without meaning to, she opened her mouth and released a high-pitched scream.  
~*~ 


	4. Painful Lighthouse

Title: Silent Remembrances  
Author: Enchanted  
Rating: PG-13  
Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy, Willow, or any of the characters mentioned  
at all.  
A/N: Wow. Um...all I can say is I'm sorry for forgetting I had been writing   
this story. And...thank you guys for being patient?? Even though I think you guys  
forgot about this story too...**shrug** Oh well. Enjoy!  
  
~*~  
It hurt! It hurt when it wasn't supposed to!  
  
"Oh my God," I hear myself mutter, "why didn't it work?"  
  
Anya looks truly concerned, something I didn't expect from her. "It didn't work, Willow," she says in light, easy-going tones, "because you loved him."  
  
"Well, yes, I know I loved him, but why does that make a difference?" I spit out through my teeth. The pain was much worse this time. Like a hammer beating in on my heart. It was strong, it was physical, and I was afraid that if I pulled down my shirt, I would see a ring of bruises around my heart.  
  
"Willow, it was a de-lusting spell. There are only two ways to use those," she sounds so calm, so rational. "It's used to stop lust and it's used to undo a love spell."  
  
"So?"  
  
"When you did a de-lusting spell to help you get over your love of Oz, the potion could find nothing wrong. You weren't lusting for him and there never was a spell said to make you two fall in love," she explains, as if this were the most obvious thing in the world.  
I could see how this wouldn't work. I knew I should have read the fine print.  
  
"So instead of removing the memories from your heart, the potion will start destroying it."  
  
"Destroying what?" Xander cut in.  
  
"Her heart," Anya states matter-of-factly.  
  
"WHAT?!" Buffy, Xander, and me both shriek at the same time. I suppose to an onlooker, it might have sounded funny, but at the time, this was absolute horror.  
  
"It will start manifesting itself in a physical manner upon your heart. It can't find anything wrong in the heart. So, it assumes that the heart is the problem itself. It'll destroy it."  
  
"Um, there's something wrong there!" I shout loudly.  
  
"What?"   
  
"I SORT OF NEED MY HEART TO LIVE---ow!" I gasp in pain. Not caring anymore, I yank my flannel pajamas down and away from my breast. Xander blushes crimson and turns away, but Buffy and Anya look steadily at the small red dot underneath my skin that was slowly spreading. "Is there any way to stop it?"  
  
"Kiss the person you love. It's like an antidote," Anya's face wrinkled up into a frown, "but that would be kinda hard, cause he isn't here to kiss, is he?"  
  
"How long do I have?" I mutter, not bothering to answer her question.  
  
"At least two weeks. Maybe more."  
  
"Good." Ignoring the pain, I struggle to my feet and stumble to the closet.  
  
"Will, what are you doing?" Buffy asks with a note of anxiety in her voice.  
  
"I'm hunting him down. I'm packing clothes in a suitcase and taking money that'll last me a month, and I'm going to find him. If I'm not back after a month..." I gasp suddenly, the clothes dropping from my hands. The pain. God, the pain!  
  
"Willow..."  
  
"I have to. It's the only way I can live. I need to win him back, I need to tell him I love him..." I tried to explain as I stooped down to scoop up the clothes.  
  
"Does anyone else here feel like panicking?" Xander asked, the dumbest thing I've ever heard him say yet.  
What are you doing?  
Panicking  
  
"No," I answer. "I certainly do not feel like panicking. Not now."  
  
Anya and Buffy exchange knowing glances. "We'll help you pack," Anya offers.  
  
"And we'll come along," Buffy adds.  
  
"NO!" I explode, "This is something I have to do alone, ok? Let me..." the pain cuts me off again.  
  
"Ok, ok. We'll let you do it alone, don't worry." Her voice was meant to be soothing, but instead, it chills me to the bone.  
  
"How are you going to find him?" Anya asks.  
  
"And how are you going to drive? I mean, with the pain..."  
  
"There's a ton of spells that can locate a person," I answer briefly.  
  
"And there's a potion that I know of that can dull the pain and slow the effects of the de-lusting spell. I'll have to remember it..." Anya walks away, her forehead creased up as she tries to bring the words back up to the surface, leaving Buffy to help me pack. She does most of it, since all I can do is lean against the bed and gasp.  
  
"Find him," she says as she glances at me, worry in her eyes.  
"I will," I promise.  
  
~*~  
  
Willow threw the suitcase in the back of her Honda and faced her closest friends, her breath coming in short gasps.   
  
Willow pivoted to face Anya. "Anya. Thank you. For being so understanding even when you kind of could care less."  
  
"What do you mean?" Anya tilted her head to the side in a quizzical way.  
"You're a demon, and well...never mind."  
  
"Oh, but I do understand!" Anya chirped "You want Oz back so you can have wild monkey sex!"  
  
"That's part of it..." Willow faltered as uncomfortable looks were exchanged.   
  
Xander didn't say anything. Instead, he smiled down at her and embraced her tightly, as if he didn't want to let her go.   
  
"Just bring Oz back. It's hard being the only man here."  
  
Willow snorted. "You fit in well with the rest of the girls, Xander..."  
  
"Hey!"   
  
Unnoticed, Willow turned to Buffy, who still couldn't believe she was leaving.  
  
"Buffy, I...just wanna thank you for...well, everything. If I hadn't met you...I'd still be this geeky girl who wouldn't know what her niche is in life."  
  
Buffy raised her head and tried in vain to stop her eyes from watering. "Can't you just stay here and conjure him to you or something like that? Willow, it's dangerous heading out alone..."  
  
"I'm a big girl now. Don't worry. I'll be back before you can say goodbye."  
  
Buffy nodded, her face crumpling. "I understand. But I don't. It's not like you to be this unpredictable."  
  
Ok, I like that. You're unpredictable.  
Willow reached over and gave her a sisterly hug, squeezing her arm when they finally pulled apart. She, too, was in tears. Sniffing, she swept Buffy's hair out of her face and laid her hands on the girl's shoulders. Searching her eyes with her green ones, Willow smiled. "I'll always be watching your back. I love you."  
  
Buffy nodded again, still crying. "Me too."  
  
The others didn't notice as Willow stepped around to the driver's side of her Honda and slipped in until she started the engine and drove away over the hill. And then, they all stopped silent and waved, trying to put on happy faces for Willow's sake. Acting like they knew she would come back, maybe the next day, maybe the next week or so. But if she didn't find him...they might as well never see her again.  
  
Xander could hear Anya whispering something under her breath.  
"What?" he leaned in to hear her.  
  
"It's a charm. A charm to grant her good luck in her quest."  
  
Buffy spun to Anya. "Teach me the words," she begged, brushing away the tears that had gathered on her cheeks, just below her eyes. "I'm gonna say it every day and...it'll be like a little prayer."  
  
It was the closest thing to praying that Buffy had ever done.  
  
~*~  
  
I'm tired. So tired. When was the last time I slept fully? No, now all that mattered was the pain. Mixing the potion and reciting the words would dull the pain for hours, and I would be driving down the street, thoroughly absorbed in the road when a dagger would suddenly twist in me and I would be swerving along the highway haphazardly, muttering expletives underneath my breath.  
  
The first time it happened, I couldn't see because of the darkness that quickly plunged in upon my eyes. The car behind me braked suddenly, its screech an exclamation point in the night.   
  
When I pulled into a parking lot and downed the potion shakily, I had to wait for a full half-hour, inhaling and exhaling, trying to banish the lingering pain. God, how it hurt.  
I did a few locating spells with a compass. What confused me though, was how it would suddenly change directions mid-spell. As if Oz had that special power to be everywhere at once.  
  
Finally, I had to bring out an old brown cloth from my suitcase, with the directions of the compass scrawled on it. I pulled out a long piece of string with a miniature silver arrow tied to it. Then, I muttered the spell underneath my breath, swinging the arrow counter-clockwise around the circle. I stopped when the arrow suddenly veered off the right. Right. That was to the...east. This would prove to be burdensome, I finally thought, if I had to stop every mile to find out where my Oz was. In a flash , my rare genius popped up. I could tie the string to my dashboard mirror and just swerve in the general direction of the arrow. Made sense.  
  
I don't know how long it took or how many speeding tickets I managed to avoid by throwing a cloaking spell over my vehicle from the police, but one day the arrow changed direction from its never-ending indication to the east. It was minute, but I caught it, and I was glad that I was finally getting somewhere. I veered to the south, muttered a, "Please, please, please," and was gratified when the arrow continued pointing to the direction I was speeding towards.  
  
One haphazard glance in the mirror verified what I thought I looked like: red hair in clumps and eyes with bags under them. I didn't even resemble the Willow I was a month ago.  
  
All because of this. All because of a love that would threaten to destroy me if I didn't find the cure.  
Isn't she cute when she's proud?  
She's always cute...  
  
Stop, I tell myself. Not while we're on the road. But my mind slips away again, and I cannot control my thoughts as I speed away into the night, into the direction of the moon, leering over the horizon at me like a great big lighthouse steering me to safety.  
  
Wait for me, Oz, I think. Don't give up on me the way I did on you.   
  
~*~ 


	5. Alone

Oz stirred the tea bag in his mug as he watched the afternoon sun play in the leaves. He watched the way it dappled the leaves' shadows and the way it threw golden patterns on the grass. 'Beautiful,' he thought. Sometimes when he was sitting there, on the front porch of his cousin Jordy's house, he wondered if such beauty was possible in the simple way that the sunlight drifted down upon the earth, the simple way it brought light the scant hours before the moon rose. He took a perfunctory sip of his tea and then brought down the cup upon the whitewashed railing. The clanking noise it made as porcelain met aged wood echoed.  
  
  
  
There was a satisfactory silence on the street. He was all alone, and that was the way he preferred things. He had always favored being solitary than being surrounded by people. He could sort things out better, then, when there was no one else but him to worry about. For the longest time, he had believed that being alone was the one thing he could count on in his life.  
  
Then she appeared.  
  
Not a day came when he didn't think of her. It was so natural now that it came as no surprise whenever she crossed his mind. There was no pain left, just a resigned numbness when it came to her.   
  
Willow.  
  
Beautiful.   
  
The words were synonymous in his mind. He could never subconsciously separate the two. For all of his life, he had known that he was destined to be alone. He was Oz, therefore he was alone. But Willow came, and suddenly, everything changed. Everything transformed from its temporal, earthly state of being into a constant feeling of fire that he could barely keep hidden. And it could all be traced to this one woman, this ethereal creature that had merely looked up one day at his direction and stolen his very soul from his being.  
  
Oz closed his eyes and allowed himself again to revisit everything from the beginning. He loved her. Wholly and completely loved her. He would do anything to have her back, save sacrifice her happiness. And she was happy with Tara.  
  
So he must learn to be happy alone. It was the way he had been from the day he was born. Shouldn't he be used to it by now?  
  
The porch door swung open behind him, startling him from his reverie. He jolted forward, and his hand clipped the cup perching on the railing. It teetered for one climactic moment before gravity took over and brought the cup and its contents onto the earth.  
  
Oz turned around apologetically, but before he did so, there was movement on the street out of the corner of his eye. He turned his head, confused, searching for the source of the movement when there had been nothing there before. "Sorry," he muttered to his aunt, before heading into the house to grab something to clean up the mess he had made.  
  
When Oz reappeared a few moments later with a broom and a dustpan, he saw the flash of movement again, and this time brought his eyes quick enough to the area where he knew he had seen it. There was nothing.  
  
And yet...yet there it was. A rippling of air, exactly like the kind of sinuous liquid flow that appeared around the flame of a candlestick. And as Oz watched, something in that air cleared and he thought he could see a tiny glimpse of a figure and a shade of red that he knew well before it was gone and the air smoothened out.  
  
The broom and dustpan fell from his lax hands as Willow appeared in the empty street. For one long moment, they stared at each other, eyes wide and questing, taking pleasure in the sight of someone they had lost long ago. She was there, real, not some foggy picture in his mind that played out behind closed eyes. Just a mere twenty feet away and it wouldn't take long to bridge that space with a few long strides.  
  
But before he could bring his feet to move, she had turned around and was walking away.   
  
She was gone before he realized that unless he did something, she would disappear and by then he was alone again.  
  
"Willow," his voice resonated in the street, bringing back the sound of his tortured, pain wrenched voice.   
  
Willow's hair started bouncing on her shoulders as she started running.  
  
~*~  
  
He was there. He was right in front of me, standing there, handsome in that aloof way of his. He was there and I walked away. You would think that I had learned my lesson the first damn time it had happened.   
  
I never thought of what to do whenever I found him. It was something I was dreading. What did I do if I found him with someone else, happily in love? What did I do if he wanted nothing to do with me? Could I explain to him that I needed him to live or would I just leave, alone, and allow myself to die of wanting him?  
  
Before that could even happen, however, I had just walked away. Submissive, compliant Willow who didn't want to get involved in anything that added unneeded stress.   
  
You'd think I would learn.  
  
Tonight was a full moon, and Oz would be out. I know it, just as much as I know that if I don't get that kiss in two days, I'll die.  
  
I've never been afraid of dying. Not really. Living in Sunnydale where there are worse things than death kind of makes you realize that you shouldn't really be afraid of it. But if I died without telling him...  
  
A coward's death. I'm not a coward. I'm Willow Rosenberg, best friend of Buffy the vampire slayer, and long-lost lover come back to tell the truth that needs to be said. I had forgotten he was mine. Had he forgotten too?  
  
Did he love me?  
  
...My whole life, I've never loved anything else...  
  
Whispered words that rang in my ears told the truth that I had been denying for a very long time.  
  
I fell asleep then, in the sun streaked hotel room that I had booked for two days. I fell asleep blissfully and entirely, slipping into blessed unconsciousness.  
  
And I woke up later with a gasp from the sudden twist of pain that encircled my taut body, and I remembered that I could not afford to sleep, not when I barely had forty-eight hours left in my life.  
  
Full moon. I slipped on my coat and walked out of the hotel room, closing the door behind me quietly.   
  
The hotel was more extravagant than what I was used to. In the lobby, there had been a huge fireplace surrounded by bookcases full of books I guess people had left or given to the hotel. A chandelier dangled from the ceiling, looking like a thousand little diamond earrings hanging from golden strands. When I first saw it, I couldn't resist pushing out my hand and summoning up a little wind to make the diamonds jingle. The look on the bellboy's face as he watched the chandelier sway back and forth made me giggle.  
  
It wasn't late, only about nine or so, but already the lobby had emptied of its daily inhabitants. I stepped to the fireplace, watching the flames leap and dance on the wood logs. The brilliance of the fire matched my hair. I knew that without looking.  
  
Across the marbled hall that stretched away from the lobby, there was a little area that had tables and chairs set up. It was there for people who ate breakfast, I guess, but it was too late for breakfast, so I wondered why there was this guy sitting there, in the dark, jotting something down on a piece of paper. He sat in the dark, his figure hidden by shadows. Everything about him was dark, I could see that. Dark hair, dark eyes. Even the look on his face made me shudder. Grim determination, with a hint of cold triumph.   
  
He was creepy.  
  
I turned away from him and realized that the tables were on the way to the exit. I sighed, gathered my courage and briskly walked towards the glass doors that held my freedom. He got up as I started walking past him, and I crashed into his right arm. The papers he had been writing on fell from his hand and swirled to the floor.  
  
"Oh...sorry," I groaned as I bent down to scoop them up. "I didn't mean to..."  
  
One glance at the paper and I saw something that literally froze the words in my throat.  
  
Full moon.  
  
Silver.  
  
Werewolf.  
  
Oh dear. My eyes widened, and I knew that the person standing in front of me that gave me the creeps, the werewolf hunter was standing in front of me, hands outstretched, waiting for his notes. That was exactly what they were, just hastily scrawled notes, sort of like my shorthand notes I always took in high school and throughout college. But those four words I could decipher. Making sure to conceal my surprise and shock, I handed the papers back to him with a fake smile.   
  
Tonight was a full moon. Oz would be out, with this werewolf hunter after him.  
  
Finding Oz got more important all of a sudden. If I didn't, the two of us would die. There were worse things than your own death. But when it was the death of someone you loved... With a strangled sob, I ran out the door and into the chilled night. Oz was out here somewhere. And I had to find him. I had to.  
  
~*~  
  
Oz held it back for as long as he could. It was important that he get deep enough into the forest so that he didn't harm anyone. The moon was calling him; it was summoning him from his human existence into something deeper, something that was ancient and primitive. Usually he could ignore the moon's call. He could usually deafen himself to the way it drew his animalistic nature into the wild, but sometimes he couldn't.  
  
Tonight was one of those times. There was no real way for him to escape it tonight, not with the way things had been going lately. He needed that release, that surge of power that overtook him as he let go of all the human worries and dropped into the wolf's needs and wants.  
  
He could feel the hair growing on his arms. Was this deep enough? It didn't matter, he wouldn't be able to delay the transformation any longer. He tossed his head up at the moon and felt its ivory rays run raw power over his body.  
  
He was alone. And he was grateful for it.  
  
And just a few miles away, the one person who could directly impact both Oz's and Willow's life loaded silver bullets into his gun and smiled.  
  
~*~ 


End file.
